WHEN news emerged about a 14-year-old girl being flogged to death in Bangladesh earlier this month, the world reacted with shock and horror. When I dug a little deeper, I discovered that the truth was even worse than the story reported in the media.

According to Dhaka's The Daily Star — the newspaper that first broke the story — young Hena Akhtar was raped by her cousin, Mehbub. When his wife Shilpi saw them together, she, her sister and her aunt inflicted unspeakable horrors on Hena for hours until she was incapable of standing up. Shilpi then went to the village council and asked them to 'arbitrate' between her and her husband and to punish Hena for adultery.